Psychiatry is the only specialty in all of medicine and surgery that does not at least partly rely on traditional lab testing methods (blood, urine, lymph, marrow, etc.) or imaging studies (fMRI, for example) in arriving at either diagnoses or treatment plans. The only one. Even dermatology, one of my old specialties, does all kinds of lab work now. Tons of it.

In my opinion, at the critical period of, say, maybe 50 years ago, when medical diagnostic technology was just starting to erupt, psychiatry needed to make up its mind what it wanted to be. Did it want to continue to be some kind of Freudian/Jungian thing with a little bit of meds thrown in? Or did it want to recognize that the brain is a living, breathing organ, and maybe head more in the general direction of neurology and neurosurgery/interventional radiology? Maybe take a picture every now and then, see what's going on in there--just for kicks?

It is quite obvious what direction psychiatry took. And we are all now paying the price.